EVENTS

Shhh. Don’t tell Larry.

Lovely Wife developed an excellent theory. The coffee at Tim Horton’s, Canada’s ubiquitous coffee chain, is heavily drugged. Canada would be a non-stop raging 28 Days Later apocalypse if not for the fact we’re kept sedated. She’s working on the screenplay now.

Canadians are just brought up to inately understand that everything has it’s place, and that anger is to be dealt with at the rink. You duke it out, a guy in a striped shirt sends you off to sit and rest for a couple of minutes, and if you still have issues to work out you do it again. You leave it all on the ice, where it belongs. You don’t take it home.

And when it’s all over you line up, shake hands, and wish the other well.

Most of our television programming comes from America and growing up I saw a big difference in American vs. Canadian media content. For a look into the ‘Canadian psyche’ I recommend an episode of Corner Gas or the Rick Mercer Report.

I just got back from Toronto. What surprised me was how hard it was to find a Tim Horton’s. Starbucks were all over the place. When I did come across a Tim Horton’s store, the lines were usually very long.

Of course Larry is doing his part to keep the mass drugging plot from being exposed.

However mellow one may become from drinking Tim Horton’s coffee, I can personally attest that one will NOT be mellow if one spills a fresh cup in one’s lap. You know that place on the cup where it says “Attention – Chaud!”? They’re not kidding. I still have the scars on my leg.

Straight up, this isn’t the first time Timmies has faced that accusation. Anecdotally, Tims uses some strange beans (people started noticing it tasted different once the “Always Fresh” campaign started over a decade ago), but the only noticeable difference is that there’s far more caffeine in TH coffee. That doesn’t lend to mellow.

But again, this is anecdotal. I haven’t found any papers on the subject.

Where I came from, Mike has it nailed. If you’re angry, you take it outside til you all bleed, then you come in and grab a coffee or a beer or a joint. And when you see some other people bout to get it on, leave them the fuck alone. Getting between them is like getting between duelling grizzlies.

“(Serious mode) I think Canadian “mellowness” stems from the fact that we don’t live in fear.”

DING DING DING! Give that man a dollar! The only reason Canada has enemies is because we’re friends with the US!

But I digress. I’m a Canadian living (temporarily, thank god) in LA. I don’t drink coffee at all and Tim’s hot chocolate gives me the shits. I’m pretty mellow though. I think, on the contrary, that someone’s been dosing the water down here with speed… or acid. Nothing else could account for all the pink-backpack wearing-chihuahuas and collagen fish-lips. And the way people drive down here could only be explained by perpetual intoxication.

Remember, though, that Timmies, Canadian icon though it may be, has been majority owned by Wendy’s since 1995. They completed a spin-off to shareholders, though, February this year, though I don’t know the split of where the buyers reside. We still have quite a number of “Wenhortons” (Wendy’s/Tim Horton’s in a single building) around – a great combination if you want something more interesting than Frosters for dessert.

(Sometimes you learn more just looking up things to confirm what you’re going to say in a comment :)

I don’t know quite how to account for the mellowness. It’s not even as though everyone is a dyed-in-the-wool liberal at all up here. We tend to send liars in office packing, even if it’s just to send them a message, and conservatism mostly does not go hand-in-hand with the “I’ve got mine” attitude… at least around here, with the history of the Social Credit party in our most “rednecked” province.

We certainly get kept on our toes by ideological imports. Mostly, they seem to get rebuffed, but sometimes they take root. I’m not very happy that we’re getting our very own creation museum within easy driving distance. Grrrr.

Patness said “[i]Anecdotally, Tims uses some strange beans (people started noticing it tasted different once the “Always Fresh” campaign started over a decade ago), but the only noticeable difference is that there’s far more caffeine in TH coffee[/i]

As a veteran in the coffee biz, I’ve heard a thing or two about TH. Mother Parker’s is the current roaster for Tim, they won the last tender at somewhere about $2.75/lb. Roasted and packaged at that price there can’t be much Arabica bean. I’m guessing they’re heavy on the use of Vietnamese Robusta or similar grades. Also, it’s roasted “light”, explaining the higher caffeine content. Light roasts are always much higher in caffeine, dark roasts are much lower. Most people don’t get the paradox.

Sources also tell the industry that the key to TH is that the roast temperature is turned way up at the very end of the cycle to burn the outside of the bean. When ground this gives the coffee it’s dark colour which is necessary to stand up to the 18% cream that Tim uses. Remember too that their standard is a “double-double” meaning 2 shots cream, 2 sugar and you can understand why they need to blacken the bean at the end of the roast. Their dairy bill must be higher than what they pay for their coffee.

Curling is our national sport for people over forty. Again, there’s room for anger venting — you have to scream nonstop at your own teammates to get the result you want. (HARD! HARD! OFF OFF OFF!) At the same time, the traditions of the game require you to be almost obscenely polite to the other team.

Against the Timmy’s hypothesis, people here in Vancouver tend to drink much better coffee and yet are even more laid back than other Canadians, Provincial politics excepted.

Remember, though, that Timmies, Canadian icon though it may be, has been majority owned by Wendy’s since 1995.

Yes, but I think it’s been a mostly positive development for Tim’s. Before Wendy’s bought them, Hortons didn’t have a drive-thru service. Now they have drive-thru line-ups rivalling the in-store line-ups (meanwhile, Wendy’s windows really only fill up at about 2 or 3 in the morning when the bars let out and no one else is open). Also, the introduction of the lunch menu was nice, since we now have a healthier (if somewhat pricey) alternative to McD’s, Harvey’s, etc. The newer stores are much cleaner and better lit too.

On the negative side, the donuts have gone to crap in the past 10 years. But I probably shouldn’t be eating them anyway.

Yeah, the Liberal Elites in Canada drug Timmie’s coffee, ensure that Canadian beer is stronger (and tastes way better), and make only halfhearted attempts to stamp out marijuana use in order to keep the masses too inebriated to vote in a (majority) Conservative government.

Oh, and Canada tries to prevent you Yankees from importing your jeebus-lovin’ “family values” and Fox News by utilizing nanotechnology-infused coins to spy on you.

I’ve been in Africa for the last 6 months and I would absolutely trade any family member or part of my own body for a large regular right now. Tim Horton’s is second only to William’s in Canada (does William’s exist outside Waterloo?), and I will not hear anyone slander it’s goot name.

The popularity of Tim Horton’s is a mystery to me. Their coffee is about as good as you’d find in your average gas station mini-mart or 7-11. Perhaps it is indeed drugged, as that would be the only reason to drink the swill. Horton’s donuts are pathetic too. I agree with Larry on most things, but not not on this.

Tims has been doing some very slick marketing since Wendy’s took over…they have shit-kicked the competition. I agree that Tim’s coffee is swill … but I’m still hooked…I’m even old enough to remember when Tim Horton played for the leafs!

Yes, there are a couple of William’s in Guelph, and I know of at least one in Hamilton (across the street from the hospital at McMaster university). I’ve heard rumours of William’s in Toronto and elsewhere in southern Onterrible, but it’s certainly not present out West (i.e. that 3000 km wide stretch of territory west of North Bay).

Personally, I find TH coffee acceptable, nothing more. I like William’s better, and it’s the same price around here. Starbucks is rare here, but my time in Vancouver has imparted in me a taste for their beverages, particularly the cappuccino-based drinks like Mochas. Those are bloody expensive, though, so I save that for special occasions.

Canada would be a non-stop raging 28 Days Later apocalypse if not for the fact we’re kept sedated. She’s working on the screenplay now.

I’d pay good money to see that movie in theatres – I know several people who would cheerfully murder any person foolish or heroic enough to try to prevent their access to their daily dose of Tim’s. Can I get a cameo as “surprised drive-through victim number three”?

[Timmies is] certainly not present out West (i.e. that 3000 km wide stretch of territory west of North Bay).

Good gravy – parts of Mississauga are west of North Bay! Is that what you call ‘out west’?! In fact, IIRC, Larry Moran lives in Mississauga. He may live west of North Bay!

Don’t tell me – let me guess – you’re from Toronto, right? Everything outside the city limits is ‘wilderness’, eh? I assure you, there are plenty of Timmies west of North Bay. I’ve been to ones in Sudbury, the Sault, London, and Sarnia, to name just a few.

{BTW, this is just teasing, in case it wasn’t obvious – I suppose you meant Thunder Bay. Just had to get in my daily dose of ragging on Torontonians, the one true Canadian sport}

(I used to drink coffee black, I take a little milk and sugar in it now to cushion my gut. The thought of double-double makes me feel ill.)

Every chain coffee and every diner coffee sucks, black. As a one time professional con-a-sewer of road swill (breakfast of courier – coffee and a cigarette), of the choices available Tim’s is still the best tasting, even if that isn’t saying much. It is also far superior to what most of my co-workers make in the office.

As for donuts… Americans aren’t allowed to comment, because Krispy Kremes are the most gawd-awful things ever created with the label “food”.

Plenty of Horton’s out here in Saskatchewan. In fact the drive through for one at a mall on 8th Street, one of Saskatoon’s primary business streets, has been causing traffic problems at certain times of the day given how many customers go through. Its located too close to the street, so people trying to get into the drive through end up having to wait on Cumberland Avenue, slowing up traffic.

My parents said the number of Hortons in the Maritimes seems to have reached a ridiculous level, with one seemingly every couple of blocks in some places.

The original Tim Horton’s coffee shop is in Hamilton, Ontario (at the western end of Lake Ontario). And Hamilton seems to have the greatest density of “Timorton’s” (all one word). Some years ago, LotStreetWiz was chatting with a Vice President of Tim Horton’s in his MBA class. The VP told him that the more stores they opened, the more people bought. The shops have become minor centres for socialization – people go to meet their friends and chat.

The coffee is very mild. When it hit the scene years ago it was overwhelmingly better than the cafeteria coffee that was served elsewhere. When I worked in a cafeteria, the staff taught me to thriftily pour the dregs from the old pot into the new pot, and it sat until someone drank it. You can imagine what it tasted like. So Country Style or Tim Horton’s coffee, where they make a new pot every 20 minutes, was heavenly. And people drank instant coffee at home, often with canned milk in it–double-strength, cooked milk instead of cream.

It was also a cheap date to go out for coffee when we couldn’t afford a meal.

I think Canadian “mellowness” stems from the fact that we don’t live in fear

I wonder if the fact that Canada is a constitutional monarchy has anything to do with it. Australia is similar: the institution and the person to whom you nominally give your loyalty do not actually have the power to demand that you do anything unpleasant, nor do they have to make obsequious and shallow promises to stay in their position (the one benefit of a non-elected Head of State). In addition, the head of Government is subject to removal (at least in Australia) by the authorized representative of that monarch if they step too far out of line.

It’s an interesting system, in which everybody is subject to somebody’s control; even a King (Edward VIII, 1936) was compelled to abdicate when his fitness to be monarch was questioned by many of the Prime Ministers of his Dominions. Although the reason given would not hold water today, that the process occurred is instructive and reassuring.